


The Moment After Him

by rtoziers



Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: Gay Eddie Kaspbrak, Gay Richie Tozier, IT - Freeform, IT Chapter Two Spoilers, M/M, Movie: IT (2017), Movie: IT Chapter Two (2019), Post-IT (2017), Reddie, Richie Tozier - Freeform, eddie kasprak - Freeform, it chapter 2 - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-01
Packaged: 2020-11-08 15:43:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20837993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rtoziers/pseuds/rtoziers
Summary: Richie Tozier deals with suppression as well as repression while coming to terms with the fact that he lost the love of his life. Eddie Kasprak's death triggers Richie to do a lot of self reflection. As he is in his hometown, about to depart back to his regular life, he is flooded with nostalgia, guilt, regret, but also, love.





	The Moment After Him

Richie pulled up to the kissing bridge in his red mustang. Whenever he tried leaving the Inn, the other losers would ask him where he was going; each one of them had taken unspoken shifts to check up on him and make sure he wasn’t alone. But that day, he knew he needed to do this alone. He was able to sneak away in the bright hours of the early morning. He may have not been able to get closure from the person he felt he needed it from, so he needed to do this by himself. He had to be his own closure. He sat in his car for a bit, crying silently, wearing Eddie’s hoodie. Richie had only brought one jacket and a small duffle bag, all the more reason to take his first love’s sweatshirt. Eddie’s scent still lingered on the article of clothing. This caused Richie to at first smile, but only to shortly disappear into more tears. Because he knew eventually, the scent would fade. Richie mourned with regret, but this sense of mourning triggered him to reflect and come to terms with some of his internalized battles.  
Richie never really realized all the strong feelings he had for Eddie, until he saw him again. For the first time in 27 years. Seeing him again brought him a rush of unexplainable emotions that he did not know how to handle. This was clearly caused by his ability to repress not only his underlying feelings, but also his sexuality. The memories instantly came back… lying on the hammock with Eddie, the jokes and teasing, along with shielding him from Pennywise. Richie did not know how to flirt when he was younger, so he resorted to “your mom” jokes and playful taunting. 27 years later, he realized that nothing had changed.   
Richie thought back to the first moment he saw Eddie again. He had so many feelings that he was not ready to deal with, so naturally, he drank. The mix of drinking and stress also triggered his acid reflux, so he puked. It was so hard for him not to puke when he thought about Eddie, which sounds repulsive, of course. It wasn’t puking out of disgust, it was nerves. And of course Eddie made him the most nervous. He thought back to the moment Mike called him, and his acid reflux was instantly triggered again. He wasn’t having those nervous thoughts over just the idea of dealing with Pennywise again. The call reminded him of something. It brought him back. It forced him to realize that his repressed feelings could not be ignored forever. He was so frustrated. He was angry. He almost blamed Mike for a second. It was almost as if his repressed sexuality came back and said “Knock Knock, Asshole. I’m still here”. And he knew that the time to deal with his dormant issues, was now.  
Richie tried running away from the other losers during the whole Pennywise fiasco. Of course it would have been easy for everyone to think he was just running away from the frightening monster, but he was also running away from something even more frightening to him… his feelings for Eddie. Richie assumed he was stellar at keeping secrets, but after all these years, he came to the realization that everybody knew, at least in the back of their head. He recalled Bower’s endless homophobic taunting. Which confused him as a child, he would get so frustrated. His head would flood with angry thoughts about, “How on earth does Henry know? Does anyone else know?” He would beat himself up over how he felt that he needed to get better at concealing his secret. A secret that he wasn’t even sure he had. Richie would continue to use humor to cope with his underlying issues. Some people get over it, others don’t.  
He realized he was the “others”.  
He thought about how other people’s fears could be considered basic: spiders, clowns, the dark. He at times would wish that he could have those fears. Rather than his actual fear, coming to terms with who he really is. His true identity haunted him for years. He never learned how to properly cope, so he used comedy, drinking, and avoidance.   
He hated that it took Eddie’s death for him to come to terms with his feelings. He would never stop hating himself for it. He shuddered at the thought of his first love getting pierced in the chest right before his eyes. Eddie was ecstatic to tell Richie that he killed Pennywise. (Or so he thought he did.) That’s how Richie knew Pennywise was definitely, 100% evil, and not just a hungry creature. Pennywise knew how much Richie loved Eddie, yet Pennywise urgently stabbed Eddie with his claw, right before Richie’s eyes. Richie had to lie there helplessly as the love of his life’s blood spewed all over him. As Eddie sat before Richie, slowly dying, he let Richie know that he had something important to tell him. Even though Richie knew Eddie was about to die, this sent butterflies through his body. Richie excitedly responded with “What?? What is it Eds?” To which Eddie laughed, choking on his own blood, and said in reply, “I fucked your mom.” Richie was slightly disappointed, but only for a short while, because he thought that maybe that was Eddie’s own screwed up way of confessing his love for him. Richie thought about how he may never forgive himself for never getting to tell Eddie he loved him; for never getting to caress him and hold him in his arms, for not being able to get married and raise a cute little pomeranian together. But at least now, Richie is learning to be honest and true with himself.  
He stepped out of his sports car, small knife in hand. He knelt in front of the kissing bridge, at the spot where he had once carved “R + E” as a child. He remembered how he felt. Too scared, too in his own head, to tell Eddie how he really felt. He truly did not know how. So he came to that bridge to carve their initials in. He figured maybe, this little act of defacing would help him get over the feeling. He’d just write their stupid initials and get over it, and be able to push it out of his head. But this was not the case. It only intensified his feelings. This time around, his intentions were not to erase his feelings, but affirm them.  
He leant down, looked at the faded letters, and smiled. He remembered the good times. The laughs, the bike rides, the bonding over trauma that the two of them shared. He thought back to the letter Stan wrote all of them, and heard Stan’s voice echo in his head saying,   
“Be who you want to be, be proud”.   
He smiled as a tear fell down his cheek.  
The words “And if you have someone worth holding onto, never ever let them go” also echoed in his head. He held back his tears but still smiled as he re-carved the initials “R + E” into the fence. Pennywise may have killed Eddie, but nothing, not even the most evil malicious monster, could take his love for Eddie away. 

His past secret wasn’t a secret anymore, and it would never be able to haunt him again.


End file.
